Maggie is our hostess this week. Best wishes to Lauren who had her surgery on Tuesday.
May she heal and get well quickly.
This week’s prompt is: Class Assignments
Being in the UK, we had homework and I cannot remember anything being an actual assignment, so most of Maggie’s guidelines don’t really apply to me I’m afraid.
I have made no secret of the fact I hated Grammar School.
My sister and I overlapped by a year, and I was always compared to her. She was good at French, needlework, and sports, whereas I was embarrassed by the staff because I was not. My best subjects were maths, English (I loved to write stories or poetry, but they didn’t come up very often) and music. They didn’t notice.
We had seven lessons a day, 2 after assembly before morning break, 2 after, and then 3 in the afternoon. This though could be split into 2 lessons of one and a half periods each.
We had biology, chemistry, physics, maths, English, French, German, cookery, needlework, craft, art, music and PE.
I was a librarian for the last two years of school, and any spare time would find me in the library arranging the display on my section which was permanently on view through the corridor. I made sure different books were visible every week.
When I insisted on taking my Music O level rather than cookery or needlework which I was hopeless at because I didn’t ‘do it like teacher’, my teacher agreed for me to do some old O level exam papers and she would mark them for me to see if it was a viable option. I averaged around 90% and she was surprised to learn I can play the piano, even though I didn’t have lessons through the school.
I took 5 O levels in the end, failing Geography and English Literature.
1972 was not a good year for me and I left school that summer when I was 16.
pensitivity101 
I was in a Grammar school for years. The first year was the worse but the fourth year was the best. I hated Maths and technical drawing (what was the point of that subject anyway?). I liked English, art, geography and music classes.
I left after 5 years, not staying on to the 6th form as I didn’t want to take A levels, but I didn’t get enough Os anyway.
I meant to have said ‘for four years’ and not ‘for years’ 🙂 I did CSE’s in English and art and got grade one in each.
Good for you! My 3 passes were not as good as I hoped, but passes nonetheless. As I said, 1972 was not a good year for me and the family had a crisis slap bang in the middle of my O levels.
Ah, a library worker in school! Same here, and I sure liked it. 🙂
I loved it too, even if I was allocated the same section as my sister had been!!!
I walked out on my maths exam, scored 3 out of 100
OMG. Maths was one of my best subjects and I love figurework which is why I enjoyed my job as an analyst and all my other jobs as an adult revolved around money or figures somehow!
I work as an accountant now, but I work mainly on problem solving cash flow etc
I was in High Street banking for 6 years, accounts and billing for a year and a half, cash run, allocation and costing for 7 years, International Banking for 12, credit control for 4 and sales ledger for 2, so all figures.
I do not understand your school structure at all! I am sorry school was such a bad experience. Art and music are often not appreciated. When I hired people for computer analysts jobs, I often looked for people strong in either math or music. They were always the most adept in picking up the concepts needed.
Maybe it was just me, but Grammar school did me no favours. If anything, it took away my confidence and made me feel inferior.
I don’t think it was just you.
The questions were daunting – so many and in such detail! My senior year, one assignment from Mrs. Angel (horribly misnamed!) at the beginning of the year, where we were given a list of 10 words and she asked us to use them in a story. I diligently used them and wrote a quick story but I wasn’t quick enough. She asked for the papers and I was the last to turn it in. She berated me for not finishing it (I took a whole 30 sec. more)soon enough. Anyway, she marked me down even though I used all the words and correctly too. Come to find out the people who got 100 just wrote 10 random sentences using the words! Even though she specifically asked for a story to be written. That set the tone for the year – luckily I managed an A.
Good for you. I had several classmates copy my science homework and they all got a B-. I was given a C- and demanded to know why. The teacher told me I shouldn’t copy and I said they’d all copied ME so why were their grade better. She amended them all, including mine, to C+